Adult Learning… By a UX Designer
“It is not the most intellectual of the species that survives; it is not the strongest that survives; but the species that survives is the one that is able to adapt to and to adjust best to the changing environment in which it finds itself”……so says Charles Darwin in his “Origin of Species.” I am sure that every single UX Designer that is reading right now is nodding after finishing that sentence.
As UX Designers our job description keeps evolving every day, and we are only as good as we are fast in adapting to those changes.
A couple of weeks ago I was invited to take part on a writing challenge where they asked me to create documentation from a tutorial video for an HR software management system. In the video provided by the client, the instructor explains how to create a specific policy on the time management section, and assign different variables to this policy.
At the beginning I felt a little lost because I wasn’t so familiar with writing educational content, but fortunately I’m a UX Designer, and even though this wasn’t a design assignment I decided to address it as if it was one.
First the problem statement was simple:
After watching the tutorial video at least 10 times, I understood what the tasks were, and how to perform them. One of the responsibilities of a UX Designer is being a translator, and I’ve learned the hard way in the past that the fact that we know something does not necessary means that we know how to communicate that knowledge to other people, so I definitely needed a better understanding of how to write educational content for adults. Once again the designer in me made me go and do what any good designer does before start creating anything and that is, yes you guessed it… Research!
What I honestly wasn’t expecting, was falling into such interesting and deep rabbit holes… E-Learning and Adult Learning. I got hooked by all the material that I found out there, but as intrigued as I was in digging deeper and deeper into that topic it wasn’t the time for entertainment since I only had 48 hours to complete this challenge. I focused in learning what good practices are when it comes to create content for this topic and this is what I found.
The correct term to define Adult Learning is Andragogy, and it is defined by Wikipedia as “the method and practice of teaching adult learners; adult education”.
The way that adults learn according to this Learning Model is the famous 70:20:10. This Model states that we learn 70% of what we know by doing, 20% by social interaction, and 10% by Courses, reading and basically traditional learning practices
Adults learn in a different way than kids, when we’re kids we don’t choose what to learn, we’re basically shaped by our parents, family, teachers and all that surrounds us, even when we are teenagers we mimic our friends and piers to create knowledge. Is not until we’re adults that we start choosing what we want or wont learn. There are good practices that as a learning content designer you need to make sure to provide for adults to consider spending time learning from content of your creation.
Purpose since the beginning
Adults need to know in the first 10 seconds why they should keep reading. It is necessary to establish what goals they will achieve once they finish spending “X” amount of time going through the content.
Leverage on what they already know
To teach them effectively, you have to feed into what they already know. As learning content designer you should know who’s using your content, Entry Level, Associate, Senior? Is this content for a new module or is it just for an update? Is the user already familiar with the subject or is this the first time they work with it? Having this information prior hands-on design will increase your chances of creating appealing content, instead of writing redundant, repetitive, and tedious content or ending up using unknown terminology as well as starting from a point where an entry-level user would be lost by using it.
Provide value
Adults learn because they see the relevance. If they don’t train, it could cost them a non-compliance fine or a promotion. It is just like driving the speed limit for not getting a ticket, or saving 20% of your paycheck to go on a cruise for your 10-year anniversary in 6 months, there’s always an ulterior motive or a reward for adults to comply to a regulation or to learn something new, and as a learning content designer you need to make sure you provide that in your material. They consciously decide to pick up a new skill or polish a valued hobby. It’s a choice, not a duty.
Make content easy to read
Piling up information, and using “too much” technical terminology throughout the content will push away the user, it is true that technical words are necessary, after all, many times the content itself is technical, in those cases it’s good practice using simple casual words when going from a point to the other, also when finishing explanation of a task, giving the User a sense of accomplishment it’s very important, (that high-five feeling after succeeding doing something difficult is hard to beat).
An image is worth a thousand words
This might sound like the biggest cliché in the history of design, but in this case it applies. It’s good practice providing images, or even better, video as reference when you write learning content, one thing that human beings kept from their childhood learning technic is to mimic, and by watching a video or having a visual reference of what they need to do, the percentage of success increases dramatically when it comes to learning a new task.
Trust me we’re just scratching the surface when it comes to Adult Learning, I will give away a couple of resources on this topic at the end, if you decide to dig a little deeper as I did.
Here’s the content that I created, I removed and/or blurred a couple of logos and brands for copywriting porpoises. This is an HR time management web-based software, and in this module I explain how to create a point policy for employee attendance management, and if I did my job right, I shouldn’t need to explain anything else.
Being a UX Designer has definitely changed the way I approach any problem that needs solution, as designers we are capable of using our skills to help people achieving their goals, changing people’s lives through design. Creating an app or a website is only a small part that a UX Designer should be capable of doing, the radio that a fireman uses to communicate when inside a burning building saving somebody’s life, the color blind UI in a phone that allows a User with that condition interact with the device just as the next person, that’s what User Experience Design it’s all about, UX it’s been part of our lives since forever, whats behind the “cool UX acronym” is nothing but our capability to solve problems in the easiest, seamless, practical way, creating a positive impact in somebody’s life by solving a problem that makes people lives better.
Thank you for reading!
